In the time it takes to hard boil eggs

There's a house across the street from me, and one door down. It's never been an attractive house, it's sort of a ranch house, but too small for that, with no particular interesting qualities.

When I moved into my house 20 plus year ago, it was already an older house. It was owned by a married couple, with a small child, not quite a toddler. They weren't happy. Once I heard shouting, and looked outside to see the man storming down the street, holding the kid in his arms, the wife running after him. He of course went back inside, but he just looked so fed up he wanted to just leave his life. Shortly after that, they went away.

The house was rented for awhile, to college students, who came and went.

Then a man moved in. He was a single dad, and his daughter was probably around 8 or 9. He was a good guy, but kind of aimless, and through no fault of his own, didn't know much about little girls. He was a good father though, and he and his daughter loved each other.

Then, a woman appeared. Things began to change. Flower garden got planted in the front, vegetable garden in the back. A chicken coop appeared. The once aimless man who loved his daughter now also loved this busy, busy woman.
As I got to know this woman, I learned she and the man had a lot in common. They both grew up on self sufficient farms, and their plans were to buy a piece of land out a ways, live off the land, and earn income via the internet. Both of them were programmers.
She told me she and the man met at some work related event, and he asked her out. Based on what she had learned about his so far, she told him, "no, I won't go with you. Not the way you are now. You can do better. When you do, I'll go out with you."

He did, she did, then they were a family.

Whenever I saw her, she reminded me of the Cat Stevens song, "Hard Headed Woman."



They bought their land. They gave me a bunch of their chickens eggs before they left. They were small and had light green shells.

A couple with a son moved the house. The American man had met his wife in her homeland Japan. They married, came here, had a son who was now about 13. They built an inground pool where the garden and chicken were, and a large treehouse. When you climbed into the treehouse, you could see the backyards of the houses all around.

He got promoted. They bought a bigger newer house in the neighborhood. They sold the house with the pool and treehouse. A "For Lease" sign went up front, and for a few months it was rented out, to college students.

Last week a front loader came and tore up the front yard.

Today, a demolition machine started it's work, starting at the back of the small, funny looking house.

I saw the work start through my kitchen window, as I started to hard boil some eggs. The water came to a boil, I set the timer for 12 minutes. I went on my front porch to watch the work. I went back in about a minute before the timer went off. When it did, I put the half dozen eggs into a bowl of ice water.

They were just tearing down the very front of the house, and another machine was loading everything that ever happened in that house, into a dumpster.

I wonder what the houses story was before I moved here. It was already an older house.

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes".